I am still working inside the file called Blobby green head.ai found inside the09_pen_tool folder and all I have done is turn off the ancient image layer and Ihave drawn an ellipse using the Ellipse tool.Now what I would like you to do is grab your White Arrow tool, assuming thatyou're working along with me here, and you may recall, we are going to bedrawing an absolutely exacting perfect ellipse or circle, your choice, dependingon what kind of shape you started with here using the Pen tool, which is afairly disciplined act I have to say and hopefully it will give you little bitof a sense for how to draw smooth points inside of illustrator.

I want you to click off the shape and then click on that anchor point to selectit independently of the other anchor points inside of the shape.Another thing I could have done, by the way, and this is a good habit toget into sometimes.If I switch to the Black Arrow tool and click on this shape, then theentire thing is selected.I will press the A key to switch back to the White Arrow tool to select this top anchor point.I could have marqueed around it like so and then I wouldn't have had to deselectthe shape and reselect it, and also by virtue of working this way, I knowexactly where that anchor point is, so I don't have to sift around for it.

Alright, the next thing I would like you to do is go up here to the Controlpanel and notice there is this Handles options.Currently, it's set to Hide handles for multiple selected anchor points, so youare only going to see the Control handles for a single selected anchor point,and for the two neighboring segments.Remember, I was telling you, whenever you select an anchor point inside ofIllustrator, you also select the two segments that neighbor it.That is the segment coming into the anchor point and the segment going outof the anchor point.The one exception is when working with an end point, which only has a singlesegment associated with it, in which case you just select that one segment.

Anyway, so we are seeing the control handles that are associated with the twoneighboring segments.Let's say, we want to be able to see all kinds of control handles at a time.We want to be able to see in fact all of the control handles for this ellipse.Then you would switch to this option, Show handles for multiple selected anchor points.Go ahead and click on it to make it active.Now that's not going to change what you see on the screen, because you stillhave just one anchor point selected, what I would like you to do now is pressthe Alt key or the Option key on the Mac and click on that point again, and thenyou'll select all the anchor points in this ellipse, and you'll now see all ofthe control handles.

If I had not turned that options on, just a moment ago, now it's not availableto us anymore, but if I had not turned it on a moment ago, then we would not beseeing any control handles, because we have multiple anchor points selected.Now you might wonder why in the world that's not the default setting, when doyou always want to see all your controls handles?And the answer is, yes, kind of.The problem is, once you start working inside fairly complex shapes, seeing allthe control handles can be a little bit overwhelming.And not so much of overwhelming, it's just confusing.It just gets in your way of seeing what's going on.

So you can always change that setting back and forth as long as you haveat least one anchor point fewer than all of the anchor points selected for the given shapes.So in other words, if I were to Shift+Click on this anchor point down here atthe bottom of the ellipse in order to deselect it, then I would see thishandles option again.I'll show you the difference.This is how things look normally if I turn on the Hide handles for multipleselected anchor points options, and this is how they look now.So again, you can switch back and forth between that options anytime you like.Alright, the next thing I want you to do is press Ctrl+R or Command+R in the Macto bring up your rulers, and then we're going to create a fairly ByzantineNetwork of Ruler Guides, and here is what I want you to do.

We are not going to keep the ruler guides;we are just going to create them temporarily here.You know what, let's go ahead and make a new layer;just so that we can pull out all these guides a little more easily in the future.I am going to Alt+Click or Option+Click on that Page icon at the bottom of theLayers panel, and I am going to go ahead and call this layer Guides, and I'llchange the color to let's say Olive, and then click OK.Now let's go ahead and move the drawing layer on top of the guides' layer likeso, and then I am going to click on the guides' layer once again to make itactive, even though the selected object appears on the drawing layer, we cancreate new guides on the guides layer.

Alright, now go ahead and drag out a guide from the horizontal ruler like so, sothat it snaps into alignment with the top anchor point, and I will drag anotherso it snaps into alignment with the middle anchor points, both on the left andthe right hand sides.And I will drag a third horizontal guide line so it snaps into alignment withthe bottom handle inside the shape.Let's do the same thing with the vertical ruler, so drag a guideline to the leftpoint, the center point, and to the right point like so.Now we need to add guides for each of the control handle.

So, I will start with the horizontal guidelines and snap into alignment withthat control handle right there and then I will draw another one that snaps intoalignment with this bottom control handle.Notice by the way the control handles on the left and right sides aresymmetrical with respect to each other.So all you are going to need is a system right now of five horizontal guides andpretty soon we'll need five vertical guides as well.So I will drag a guide from the vertical ruler that snaps into alignment withthis control handle, and another one that snaps into alignment with this control handle.

And that's all we need.Now we are done with the ellipse.If you want to get rid of it, which I suggest you do, just press the Backspacekey once or twice in order to get rid of that shape that would be the delete keyonce or twice on the Mac.Alright, so with my best efforts all these guides appeared on the drawing layer.That's not what I wanted.So I am going to go ahead and grab all of these guides by clicking on one, andShift+Clicking on another, here inside the Layers panel.It's the easiest way to work, because the guides are locked by default, andI will go ahead and grab these guides and move them on to the guides layer like so.

Alright, that just helps to clean up the drawing layer.Alright, so now we have the guides' layer that's full of guides.Ha, what a happy surprise?Alright, I will go ahead and twirl guides close once again, and now go ahead andgrab your Pen tool, and watch what I do, because if you're just starting andtrying to figure out what to do with this matrix of intersecting guidelines thatyou have created, it might be a little difficult to follow.But if you watch me, I think it will make a modicum of sense.Notice that we have one, two, three, four, five, vertical guides and one, two,three, four, five horizontal guides.

So I will start things off top middle and we are going to drag with the Pentool, and we are going to drag in a continuous direction when you're creating aperfectly smooth fluid path using the Pen tool.You either want to draw consistently in a counter clockwise fashion orconsistently in a clockwise fashion with respect to that one shape.You can always change your mind back and forth between different shapes, but asyour drawing one shape, if you start in a counter clockwise direction, you wantto stay counter clockwise.If you start clockwise, you want to stay clockwise.

But I am going to start clockwise.So I'll click here and drag to this location and notice that I've created ananchor point right there and I have created a control handle at this location soI snapped into alignment with this guide intersection, and I also createdanother control handle in the opposite direction.Alright, now move your cursor all the way over to the far right guideline,and you want to position your cursor at the middle horizontal guide, and then drag down.

So notice, I am continuously drawing in a counter clockwise fashion.It's not a matter of whether I am dragging consistently to the left or to theright, or up, or down. It's directional.In another words, you've got to think in terms of a continuous organic,fundamentally circular or circle like shape, and it doesn't necessarily look circular.But it's going to loop around and ultimately closed is the idea.So I went ahead and drag down from this point, create an anchor point at thislocation, a control handle right there at the end of my drag and another controlhandle in exactly the opposite and symmetrical direction.

Now, drop your cursor down to this location.At least that's what I am doing.By the way you could start in anyone of these far guide intersections, if you want to.So you don't have to draw things exactly like I am.This is just so that, you can follow along with me.I will go ahead and click at this location right there at the bottom middleguide intersection and then I'll drag over to the left and snap into alignmentwith this guide intersection right there.So I have got an anchor point at the bottom, control handle at the end of themy drag, another control handle symmetrical to my drag and then the fourthpoint will occur right there, I'll drag up and snap into alignment at thatguide intersection, and so once again at the risk of over documenting of what Iam doing here, we have got an anchor point at the beginning of my drag, we havea got a control handle at the end of my drag and another control handlesymmetrical to the end of my drag, and then finally, I will not click at this point.

If I did that, that's going to result in a cusp point, and we are going to havea dent on the side of the ellipse.I will go ahead and press Ctrl+Z, Command+Z on the Mac to undo that.Instead, I will click at this point and drag in the opposite direction ofwhere I want my control handle to be, because again, I am dragging in aconsistent fashion.I started in a clockwise direction, I am continuing throughout the creation ofthis path in a clockwise direction.And then you end up having a perfect ellipse, something you don't see peoplecreate very often that you managed to make along with me here, using the Pentool inside Illustrator.

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Author

Released

5/28/2010

Illustrator is the gold-standard vector graphics program that is deep and complex. Fortunately, nobody knows the software like award-winning book and video author Deke McClelland. Join Deke as he explores such indispensable features as artboards, layers, line art, transformations, and the Pen tool. Gain expertise with real-world projects that makes sense. Exercise files accompany the course.

Topics include:

Creating great art using basic tools

Brushing and building organic artwork

Scaling and rotating path outlines

Creating and formatting text

Drawing articulated paths with the Pen tool

Combining paths with Pathfinder operations

Printing and exporting to the web

Skill Level Beginner

23h 12m

Duration

2,634,847

Views

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Q: I was not able to locate my saved shortcuts and cannot locate the folder I created to place the preferences into. The Illustrator steps are clear and using the search function I should be able to find the folder, but it cannot be located. How can I find the shortcuts file on a Mac?

A: To search for the shortcuts file on a Mac, press Cmd+F. Then change
the option that says "Kind" in the top-left corner to System Files by choosing "Other" and selecting "System Files" from the menu.

Then change the next option to "Are Included." Search for "KYS." The search should find any files that were installed.

Q: The instructions for installing the dekeKeys don't work on my computer (which is running Mac OS X Lion). Is there an update to these?

A: The dekeKeys distributed with this course will still work for Lion. You just need to add them to a slightly different folder than in previous versions of OS X.

Open a new Finder window and choose Go > Go to Folder. Type the following file path exactly as written below. Copying and pasting may result in an error.

~/Library/Preferences/Adobe Illustrator CS5 Settings/en_US

Move and/or copy/paste the dekeKeys to this folder and follow the rest of the instructions as outlined in the video, "Installing the dekeKeys keyboard shortcuts."